"I first read it when I was 9 or 10," said Chabon, 36, the hottest fiction writer around, New York to Hollywood. "My memory is that I started to cry while I was reading it. The writing struck me as so beautiful - it was the first time I remember thinking there was such a thing as beautiful writing.

"The imagery of it was so strong," Chabon said. "The part I especially remember is when the family goes for a drive in Mexico on a summer night and when the car stops . . there are all these butterflies, sucked into the grille of the car, their wings slowly flapping as they die there on the grille of the car. It affected me so much, this image Bradbury created. That's when I really started to pay attention to writing."

Chabon's attention to writing led to a degree at the University of Pittsburgh, acceptance to the master-of-fine-arts writing program at UC-Irvine and a sudden, dizzying ride into the high strata of the writing world when he submitted his novel,

"I dropped the novel into the mailbox in the English department on a Friday afternoon," Chabon explained, "and on Monday morning it was back in my box with a note from my teacher - McDonald Harris - saying, 'This is pretty good. I hope you don't mind, but I took the liberty of forwarding it to my agent in New York. Don't expect anything, but I do think what you've done is pretty good.' "

Harris' agent agreed, and before Chabon was 24 years old he be

came a published author. "Mysteries of Pittsburgh" turned into a bestseller and Chabon went on to write "Wonder Boys," the story of a university professor caught in a triangle of failed loves, a failing book and a brilliant student. A couple of years after the book's publication, Hollywood bought "Wonder Boys" and turned it into a film (opening in Bay Area theaters Friday) - directed by Curtis Hanson, who directed "L.A. Confidential," and starring Academy Award winners Michael Douglas and Frances McDormand.

While he was recovering from the good news, Chabon kept writing, producing a series of stories that wound up in the New Yorker, New York Times and Vogue. He also completed a book of short stories, "Werewolves in Their Youth," that received a best-in-fiction award from the Bay Area Book Reviewers Association, which will host award winners at a reception March 15 in the main library in San Francisco.

Chabon - who lives in Berkeley with his wife, Ayelet, a 21/2 -year-old son, Zeke, and a 5-year-old daughter, Sophie - didn't stop there. Earlier this month he submitted a manuscript to his publisher, Random House, for his next novel, "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay." Then he brushed off his one good Armani suit for this week's grand premiere of "Wonder Boys" in L.A.

'Stuck inside the book'

Sitting at a table in Postrio, Chabon leaned back and grinned, barely fazed by the hoopla. It wasn't as easy as it may sound, said Chabon - after the success of "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh" he struggled with his next work, "Fountain City." A year passed, two years, and "I kind of got stuck inside the book," he said.

"I thought I might never get out. It never got as massive as the

professor's book in 'Wonder Boys,' with those 2,000 pages, but it wasn't going anywhere, either," said Chabon. "So I created this crazy kind of voodoo doll with the professor. . . . All this writing trouble was happening to this guy, not me. It got to be easy, writing about him, so I gave up on 'Fountain City' and never went back."

Not having to worry about money is nice, said Chabon, especially when he totes up the future cost of private schools and college. And each time he sees a TV ad for "Wonder Boys" he mumbles in wonder that a book of his has been turned into a big-time movie.

When he first sold the book to Hollywood, said Chabon, "I tried to be very philosophical about it. You know, 'A movie is a movie and a book is a book.' I thought whatever happened, even if it didn't turn out the way I hoped it would, it would be good for the book. Then I heard the screenwriter was going to be Steve Kloves - who wrote 'The Fabulous Baker Boys,' which I love - and, well, I didn't have to be philosophical any more. I knew it was going to be good."

Glancing over at the well-to-do diners in Postrio, Chabon said, "I try to enjoy all of this as much as I can. I sit here eating, knowing this is on Paramount's dime, and I can't believe how lucky I am.

"I had a friend who saw a premiere of 'Wonder Boys' who called me right afterwards to tell me, also, how lucky I am. I try to keep that in mind - knowing that none of this may ever happen again."

'A big movie buff'

Chabon still pinches himself, remembering his trip to the set of "Wonder Boys" at Carnegie-Mellon University - a school Chabon attended. "I'm a big movie buff," he said, "and to walk around and see what they were doing, to talk with the crew, to watch a master like Hanson work and see people

who are so good at what they do. . . .

"It was a treat to see Robert Downey Jr. work. He's a real magical person, very much on, even when he's off. And Michael Douglas was so hard-working, so intensely focused."

Chabon also praised Tobey Maguire, who plays the student, James Leer. Maguire comes closest to the picture of a character Chabon had in mind as he wrote "Wonder Boys" - especially in the scene in which Leer sits in the darkness, next to the jacket Marilyn Monroe wore the day she married Joe DiMaggio, his voice breaking, a tear rolling down his cheek.

That scene was so close to the way he'd written it, said Chabon, "that it was almost hallucinogenic for me. Here was something I had created in my mind, appearing right there in front of me, right down to the sounds of people moving around downstairs, the sound of the door closing, the Citron pulling out of the driveway."

Chabon had approached the movie set prepared for the worst. "You can't have a stake in it. They give you the check, you should just sit back and enjoy it," he said. "But then to see something turn out so well, to see it appear just the way you'd imagined it. . . ."

To have his book so well-served by a movie is a delight, said Chabon, who was brought up on books and matinees. Movie references thread their way in and out of Chabon's stories - including Leer's listing, in alphabetical order, of Hollywood actors and actresses who have committed suicide - and there is no better way to get Chabon to talk in a blur of words than to bring up the subject of film.

Asked for his top five, Chabon barely hesitated, saying, " 'All About Eve.' 'To Be or Not to Be.' 'Citizen Kane.' 'The Godfather,' and 'Lawrence of Arabia.' " Later he said, "Robert Altman's 'Nash

ville' should be on that list . . . and 'Apocalypse Now.' I saw it about six times the month it opened.

"I was Marlon Brando's biggest fan back then. Still am," said Chabon. "And I idolized Coppola. My best friend and I went to see 'Apocalypse Now' when we were 18 or so and we had this grand scheme where we'd run away and find ourselves on his front porch, offer to wash his car, that kind of thing, just to be close to him, to get a start in movie-making."

That didn't happen. Instead, Chabon went the way of words, having started with a short story he wrote at 11 years old about Sherlock Holmes and Captain Nemo meeting to a background of "20,000 Leagues under the Sea."

"I was trying to parrot the style of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It was just kind of an exercise in writing for me," said Chabon. "But my parents thought it was great, I got an A, and I started thinking, 'That was fun. I can do this.' "

Living the California life

Chabon grew up in Columbia, Md., moved to Pittsburgh for his junior high, high school and college years, then went on to UC-Irvine. "I thought I wanted to live in California," he said. "That sounded right to me."

After his marriage in 1993, Chabon settled in L.A. before moving to Berkeley, where he continued his strict regimen of writing, confining himself to a 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. shift, Sunday through Thursday.

"Sometimes I'll write in the afternoon, but I just can't work in the morning," said Chabon, who has taught writing classes at St. Mary's. "I think a valuable message to a writer is, 'You have to work every day, preferably the same time every day.' That may be the best advice I can give."

Talk turned to movie adaptions, and Chabon listed Alfred Hitchcock as the master. "He would take

slight, fairly ordinary thrillers and turn them into classics," he said. " 'Rear Window.' 'North by Northwest'. He was probably the best adapter of all time.

" 'The English Patient' - that was a brilliant adaption, too. It was an incredibly hard book to adapt and, in some ways, the movie is better than the book. 'Cider House Rules' - I'm very impressed by the way that was done. I'm studying it closely, trying to find out how he did it. And 'Three Musketeers,' Richard Lester's 1974 version with Michael York and Oliver Reed, I thought that was great."

Sometimes, said Chabon, "staying faithful to the book is overrated. If you stay with the spirit of it - as 'English Patient' did, as they did with 'Wonder Boys' - I think that's all you can ask."

The movie of "Wonder Boys" strays from Chabon's book in a number of ways, some more significant than others. The colors of Monroe's wedding jacket and the professor's car are different, and a purloined tuba that's highly visible in the book is only an afterthought in the movie. "I really miss not having the tuba, because I put it in there," said Chabon. "But I don't know if it needs to be there or not. Maybe it's better the way it is."

At times, the movie also mushes up the emotions of "Wonder Boys," taking itself too seriously. "But everybody takes themselves too seriously," said Chabon. "Hollywood is no different there. It has no monopoly on that."

There's a sense, too, that the love troubles of a university professor don't qualify as honest tragedy or classic literature, Chabon acknowledged. "I'm never going to write 'A Farewell to Arms,' I know that," he said. "I just write what I can, what I know about."

Chabon smiled and said, "You create a much better self when you're writing. When you're writing you're much smarter, much wittier, a much better person when you're pushing the keys of that keyboard. And if you're not careful, you get trapped inside that persona, the person you're writing about. It happened to Hemingway."

Children's reading list

Hemingway, like Faulkner, like Miller and other authors whose work has taken Chabon by the throat at one time or another, may eventually wind up on his children's reading list. But Chabon is not going to be dictatorial about it.

Right now, Chabon enjoys bedtime readings of Frank Baum's "Oz" series. "I love the idea I get to re-read stuff to my daughter that I loved as a kid," he said. " 'Phantom Tollbooth,' Tolkein. . . ."

As his children get older, Chabon said, he may guide them toward science fiction or fantasy - Mervyn Peake's "Gormenghast Trilogy," Jules Verne, Jack Vance. And, when the time comes, Ray Bradbury and "The Rocket Man."